Meet the Booksellers

Plurabelle Books goes back a good while now. Initially it was all about English Studies in Europe. That was Michael's home turf. The habilitierte Anglist found himself in Cambridge and wanted to cater to fellow academics and their librarians. In 1996 Plurabelle issued its first lists, written up in Nota Bene, designed on Andrew's Apple, and copied at Staples. Once we recycled printer's waste from the Rampant Lions Press to make the cover for a catalogue.

We often worked with local librarians when they needed to free up space on their shelves. Indeed, a good portion of our books are ex library, - they proudly display the insignia of Cambridge colleges and departments. Philip Lund helped us out with the customization his son George had created for Access 97. Scientific books were coming in from all directions, we needed a database. Most of these books have found new homes now. A few years later Holger migrated all the data onto a proper SQL server, Thomas connected the osC website, and today we show 60.000 books in stock, resting safely on the trusted Balmforth Engineering shelving that was no longer required in Edinburgh. And we have sold some 80.000 books to customers all over the world. So far, so good.

Julia came from Germany to help with the German Fraktur. Ruth came from the other Cambridge, the Bahamas and Jordan. She knew how to deal with horses, how to cook a mean Baba Ghanoush and saw us through a busy period of expansion. She started our bookshop for visitors, made sure that the sole trader became a limited company and was in charge when Michael started to disappear to California. Ren came from China, was soon fluent in VB and played the violin occasionally. Maryam added 14.000 books to our database, Lisa joined the team and designed our website. Daniel Borkert liked the book business enough to branch out on his own and is now running Fundus in Berlin. David Rueger came from the Leys made his way into the upper echelons of antiquarian book-selling through Martayan Lan (New York) and Inlibris (Wien). More recently, Gemma and Gretel have joined the team.

Laura effectively runs the shop now. Singlehandedly, almost, she moved all our books from the stonemason's workshop to Restwell house early in 2014 (Applause!). She can spot an imaginary invoice like no other. Of course she rides her bike to work every day.